


Truths and Half-Truths

by qthelights



Category: Supernatural RPF
Genre: Angst, Bittersweet, Conventions, Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-01-24
Updated: 2010-01-24
Packaged: 2017-10-30 00:29:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,445
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/325784
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/qthelights/pseuds/qthelights
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Truth is a slippery concept.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Truths and Half-Truths

i.

Jensen decides that he doesn’t like listening to Misha do his convention panels. Usually he, or Jared, or whoever was around at the time with nothing scheduled, would sit in the wings, or up the back in shadow, and listen to whoever happened to be under the spotlight, under the grill, at that particular moment.

 _Usually_ , Jensen loves that. Seeing his colleagues squirm and twist under the shrewd gaze of a room full of finicky switched-on women is satisfying in a way he doesn’t even need to examine to understand.

But he finds he doesn’t like watching Misha.

Misha teases and coaxes and flaunts every single rule of ‘dealing with fans’ that Jensen has learned. And he learned them the hard way. He thinks it’s only fair that newcomers learn them that way too.

But, whatever. Life is too short, and if Misha has a golden ticket – or tongue – and can get away with murder, then more power to him.

No, what bothers him is something else. Misha’s answers are too perfect, too slick. Like oil coating the back of his tongue. He says, _apparently_ , all the right things. Has the crowd in giggles and sighs and fucking adoring him as he insults them right to their faces.

It’s quite the talent.

At first, Jensen has to admit, if he’s honest, that he was a bit awestruck by it all. He wanted nothing more than to rush to wherever Misha was, watch him bend the fans around his fingers.

Because Misha was fucking hilarious. He’d hit just the right note of insanity and mix it in with a smidge of seeming depth. Give a little too much honesty to be accidental and top it off with a childhood story, a tidbit to make the fans feel as if they were privy to some deeply personal insight. That they were worthy of such attention. They were trusted. Special.

And Jensen fell too; tumbled headfirst into the dizzying depths of Misha’s spell. It was so easy. Of course, it was meant to be. It was glorious all the same.

Until he realised that what he saw there wasn’t Misha.

It’s a show. Oh so carefully, beautifully constructed. Until you began to pick at the edges and the tightly wound drama began to fray and warp.

A night up late or a question too many and the sarcasm becomes more biting. Not too far that the fans will notice, but that Jensen can.

The answers slow, become more contrary and a hell of a lot more nonsensical. There’s deliberate baiting, lures cast only for the smack-down that will have them adoring even harder, hooked through the mouth and gasping for air but flipping and flopping in ecstasy as they come aground.

Smooth dialogue becomes jilted and tense, an undercurrent of ‘fuck you’ contempt hitting each word surrendered to each mind-game question. Every story, every tease a cover, a diversion.

Misha is good at bait and switch, too good. His protection honed and twisted, lashed around him with bloodied fingernails.

Arrows veiled as witty retorts, skilful and deadly to anything approaching, anything with the slightest ability to pierce through the armour. But they are fun and funny, until they are, you know, _not_.

It gets to the ‘not’ part quicker once he works it out. Then Jensen stops bothering to watch; he has better things to do with his time.

He slips out of the crowd, unseen, and goes back to his hotel room. He waits for the knock that he knows will come.

Later, when Misha is flushed and silent under him, staring up with eyes full of need, Jensen lets the guard back down. _This_ is Misha, honest and caring and just as fucking unsure as the rest of them.

This Misha squirms and huffs hitched-up little sounds against the skin of his throat. Shudders and claws with a desperate ferocity that belies the oil. He looks up at Jensen, eyes dark and curtained by lashes, and confesses his sins without a word.

And Jensen dips his head, finds Misha’s lips and absolves him.

They lie there, in the dark, hotel linen scratching against their skin, click-hum of the air-conditioning unit the pulse of the room, and Jensen listens to Misha talk, low and gravelled and without any bite or tease. He exists in the rumble of Misha’s words, Misha’s world, and absorbs the fears and joys, the stories behind the cute asides. And he hears the quiet pleas for validation that will never ever be spoken.

Because _this_ is true.

And for truth, he can forgive.

 

ii.

 

Mostly Misha just wants to be their friend. All these new and strange people want to be _his_ friend, and sometimes he wants so badly for it to be true.

He remembers their names and faces. He listens to what they say to each other, asks them questions and learns their worlds. Friendship is a two-way street, after all.

He’s relatively new to this ‘fame’ thing, at least as far as it exists outside his own head, but he’s smart enough to see it for what it is, what most of the masquerade of adoration really hides, even when the fans don’t.

It doesn’t make the moments of interaction any less genuine though, and he hopes he never gets to the point where it does. Though really, he knows he will. But for now, in these moments, he quips and banters and fucking sparkles at them like they’re all old friends and know his idiosyncrasies.

Of course they don’t. They couldn’t possibly. So they can’t tell when his eyes flash ‘fuck off,’ hard and as sharp as fresh cut diamonds. And so even though they aren’t his friends, and don’t know him, and even though it’s his fault for fostering this stupid false relationship, he irrationally feels they should. And so he gets kinda pissed off when they don’t. When they decide to push.

He is not their monkey. Though really, he’s the one who gave them that impression, isn’t he?

So at each new convention he gets a little more careful; does a little more conning of his own. He deflects out of defensiveness, in a way that he often does, but that he cannot stand other people doing.

For all their intrusion, he knows that they really care. They absolutely support him. And he appreciates that more than he’ll ever really be able to say without sounding a little bit demented, or without creating about a hundred hard-core stalkers.

So he plays along, despite the desire squirming deep in his gut to clamp down and shut the hell up. He gives them stories and smiles, teases and cajoles and treats them like his new best friends. And he does not let his sometimes annoyance get the better of him. Or at least, he tries.

Anyway, he’s always been rather mercurial, and he isn’t about to stop now. He’ll take each question as it comes, rather than make some grand decision to tell the truth or outright lie to them all. One fan he’ll connect with, create a private bubble of chat, forget the others in the room. Another he’ll make fun of, and draw the rest of the crowd in with him in mutual disdain.

Misha’s aware of Jensen in the crowd. And then he’s aware of Jensen not being in the crowd.

Half of him feels relieved; that he isn’t on show to his actual friends as he plays this part. After all, if he treats strangers like this, then what does that say of his real interactions which, for all intents and purposes, _look exactly the same?_

But the other half of him feels a little bereft. Because if he has to do this, to strip down to his soul in some bizarre, erotic, social ritual, then shouldn’t someone have his back while he does it?

As with his fans, he doesn’t blame Jensen. He often feels like a fraud, feigning love, despite genuine ‘like,’ and Jensen can probably see it. Jensen is pretty deft at not sharing false emotion; he probably deserves to feel a bit superior.

It doesn’t stop him seeking out Jensen’s hotel room when he’s done, knocking, despite the urge to turn and run, despite the skittering nervousness thrumming in his veins.

He tries to ignore the warm sliver that slides like a sedative through his nerves when Jensen just _knows_. Leads him in and opens him up without so much as a question. Lays him down and strips him bare.

It shouldn’t matter that Jensen understands, that he forgives him with gentle touches and innocent kisses.

But it does.


End file.
